Chit For Paid Sex Circulated In DU Women’s Washroom Shows How Unsafe Even These ‘Safe’ Spaces Are!

On 28 December 2022, in New Delhi, a note for ‘paid sex’ was found in the women’s washroom of the University of Delhi’s (DU) North Campus Satyakam Bhawan. Satyakam Bhawan is an extension building of DU’s Social Sciences department.

The note found read that “if any girl wants to have paid sex, WhatsApp or text here”, followed by a number.

The number on True Caller is registered for a female name. However, the call is picked up by a man.

A clear lack of safety in what should be a safe place for women students?

Note found on DU’s women’s washroom.

“It is a reality or not is a different issue. But if something like this is being circulated in DU’s women’s washroom, it is very dangerous and demeaning,” says a female student pursuing a master’s from DU.

The question here is not whether it is a joke or whether the person whose number was being circulated was aware. The question here deals with something graver than this; how can such a thing happen in the first place in an institution like DU? It raises questions about women’s safety, even in one of the most reputed universities in India.

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It compels one to think that women are under surveillance even in the most secure and private areas, like an educational building’s washroom.

Similar cases have happened in past

There have been many such cases in the past, too, where such numbers were written on washroom doors of DU Colleges. However, never before was a note put up explicitly asking for paid sex.

What makes the situation worse is that such things often happen in supposedly safe spaces, so much so that the women have ‘learned to deal with it.’

It happens to the extent that it has been normalized, and many forget about it within a day or so until it happens again.

Header image source: Kseniya Kopna on pexels

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